OIL ON WOOD

1,25 X 93CM

   NOT FOR SALE

Lorenzo Guerrero was part of one of the most prolific generations of artists in the history of Mexican art. Engraver and painter of popular subjects that shows the traditions of Mexico in his art. In the 50s with the eyes of the world on artists such as Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, Orozco, Siqueiros, an important impulse to art and its expressions, happened, which at that time reflected themes such as the revolution, pre hispanic communities, and traditions of Mexico. Lorenzo Guerrero was part of the «Frente Nacional de las Artes Plasticas» (National Front of Plastic Arts). It was a collective of collectives founded in 1952, just at a time of «crossing» between two adverse aesthetic trends: the realism of the so-called Escuela Mexicana de Pintura» (Mexican School of Painting) and what has been called «Ruptura» (breaking off). The organization proposed the construction of a large-scale cultural project, which included improving the economic conditions of creators, especially of young people who lacked dissemination and support in a country where there was not enough market for artistic work and the greater patron was the state. Who organized this collective? Painters, teachers of artistic education as normalist teachers, some of whom were active in the Mexican Communist Party (PCM) or other leftist groups. Still others did not show any political tendency. According to its organizers, it was a kind of broad front, in which the left and the progressive bourgeoisie could unite. However, the same call reiterated the defense of the «plastic tradition», understood as the iconography whose themes were the people, the worker, the landscape, the Mexican flora and fauna, heroes and social issues.

With this front, it is proposed to open different art schools throughout the country, as well as the impulse of the government through «Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes» (National Institute of Fine Arts), to promote art outside of Mexico (as was the Organization for the International Promotion of Culture OPIC), organising international  biennials where Lorenzo Guerrero was selected to participate with his work «Los Judas», in the exhibition «Contemporary Painting of Mexico» at the National Museum of Colombia in Bogotá in 1961.